


Fire in the Night

by JaqofSpades



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: 60 Moods of Summer, F/M, Summer Solstice, birthday fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2016-08-22
Packaged: 2018-07-29 01:03:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7664236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaqofSpades/pseuds/JaqofSpades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She’s a Matheson and you’ll always be Monroe, and they feel like chains now, those wretched names.  Because you can’t escape each other and you’re fucking made for each other and you’re rotting slowly in the stinking dungeon of your past, just going through the motions as you wait for death.</p><p>Or, how Bass and Charlie celebrate the summer solstice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. that burns within

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nyxierose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyxierose/gifts).



> For nyxierose/electricbluebutterflies on tumblr for being a wonderful human being who just happens to have had a birthday last month. I wanted this to be a light, almost fluffy fic, but it kept refusing to cooperate but I promise this first chapter is the darkest. Blame Monroe. For 60 Moods of Summer, for the flash challenge ‘summer solstice’ with fills for a bunch of 60 Moods prompts, detailed at the end of each chapter.

*

_“I am the fire that burns within your soul,_

_I am the holy light that fills and makes you whole,_

_I am the flame within that never dies,_

_I am the sun that will ever arise ...”_

_-From “[Litha (summer solstice song)](https://www.letras.mus.br/lisa-thiel/681968/traducao.html)" by Lisa Thiel_

 

*

The village is an hour away, and you’re both tired now.  Not just from the trek – though fourteen hours in the saddle seems harder than it used to be – but from the constant battle.  Your vendetta against the one **enemy** that refuses to stay fucking dead, no matter how often you cut it down.

Your feelings. Her feelings.  The way your bodies know better than both of you, swaying together the minute you forget to fight, heedless of all the reasons this can’t happen.

You killed her father.  Her brother.  Took away her mother.  Tortured her friends – probably would have done the same to her, given long enough. Madness enough.

There’s no redemption from those things.  No clean slate for you.

You’d resigned your soul to the trashcan a long time ago, but it hasn’t stung before, not since Miles showed up in your bedroom in the middle of the night all those years ago.  You’d despaired then, let yourself fall deeper into the pit, but this, this …

It’s every bit the vicious karma you deserve, falling in love with this girl.

You don’t even bother to deny it, anymore. Just try to deal with it, to take it as your penance, the constant cramp of desire and the way her smile makes you feel human again.  If you can protect her, keep her alive and undiminished – you might even start to believe that you’re worth something.  But that’s the very pitchfork the devil is sticking you with, because how pathetic is it that the soft looks she throws your way sometimes, the quickly disguised admiration – they might even mean more than the desire crackling between you.

Sooner or later, her sensual curiosity will claim you both and you’ll try to say no, but … you’ll fail.  You know this in your bones, know how fucking weak you are, know you want to fuck her more than you want your next breath.  So you will, and then you’ll pull the monster about yourself and tell her it’s just sex, because you love her way too much to let it become anything else. 

She’s a Matheson and you’ll always be Monroe, and they feel like chains now, those wretched names.  Because you can’t escape each other and you’re fucking made for each other and you’re rotting slowly in the stinking dungeon of your past, a **prisoner** going through the motions as you wait for death.

Problem is, death doesn’t seem to want you either.  And you’d danced real pretty for that bitch, at the Tower, in New Vegas, Willoughby and all the points in between, even after you’d had something to live for, Connor and the fight and … this girl, scrabbling at the bars of your prison, trying to get in. 

You couldn’t let her, of course.  Didn’t matter what you wanted.  It’s harder and harder to remember, now, but every time her skin was soft under your fingers, or she gazed a moment too long at your mouth – you reminded yourself.  Let her in, and she would see.  Who you really are.  Just how putrid it is down here.  The great swirling morass of it - love and hate and sex and death and loyalty and betrayal and all those old bonds you struggle against, but can never quite escape.

(Miles.  Bastard can barely look at you for sneering these days, but if he found out you’d touched the girl, wanted her … he’d kill you.  And manage to look betrayed while he twisted his fucking sword in your gut. Disturbed that you could do that to him.  Even think of defiling his precious niece.)

(Daughter.  Probably.  His precious daughter, and isn’t that truly fucked, even without bringing Connor into the equation.)

(Rachel. Don’t think about Rachel, or that alcohol-soaked night she’d lured you into her bed, your shared fury at Miles the only thing to unite you in twenty years of acquaintance.)

You snort and spit at the foul taste that leaves in your mouth, and she turns to raise an eyebrow at you, wide mouth quirking in question.  You shake your head, calmer, warm blue eyes dragging you back from the nightmare.

She nudges her horse closer.

Your knees brush and your eyes slip shut at the feeling of it, resentment swamping you like a tide. Why shouldn’t you enjoy this?  Let it happen?  Hell – grab it and run? Miles had left, mobilised the Rebels against you, fought for fucking Georgia, so how do you owe him anything?  You aren’t friends, you aren’t even fellow soldiers anymore.  (You’ll always be my brother, he’d said.  But just look at that track record.)

It was Charlie who followed you to Austin and signed on to watch your back, not Miles.  Charlie who’d spent her nights propping up the bar with you, and her days unscrambling the paperwork that was all you could manage in your hungover state.  Charlie who’d kept you going with her sneaky hip bumps and her snarky challenges.  You knew what she was doing, even if you didn’t want to know why she was doing it.

It had been easy to remember in Willoughby, poisoned by Miles and Rachel and the memory of Connor’s triumphant smirk.  Even in Austin, you’d kept the wall up… you weren’t exactly popular among your new colleagues, given you’d spent years trying to kill them. You’d seen the sneers and snubs that she had to endure for daring to walk next to you, so you’d ignored the heat in her eyes, kept it professional, patronising even, since you couldn’t bear to see her punished just for smiling at you.

But six weeks ago you’d left it all behind.  A diplomatic mission, they called it, crisscrossing the Plains to take the greetings of the new Texan government to the patchwork of independent settlements scattered through the grasslands. Just the two of you, the sweet days of early summer, and a job that fits your pieces together tighter than they’ve ever been.

The deeper you get into the Plains, the more the breeze sweeping across the open prairie fools you into feeling free, and Charlie’s hand creeps into yours even when there’s no message to pass.  The things you need to do and the things you want to do start to blur together until every sidelong glance, every seemingly casual touch throws raw fuel on banked embers.  

Every reception committee seems full of pretty girls that make her move closer, blue eyes fierce and her hand possessive on your arm.  You’d understand it if it was a cover, but you’re here quite openly as delegates from the Texan government, Captain Matheson and Major Monroe, so there’s no need for pretence, nothing to hide.

Just you, and Charlie, and a place that doesn’t seem to give a damn about who you are, or what you’ve done. 

Nothing has ever felt this dangerous.

This will be the fourth village this month, and it’s almost routine now.  First the meet and greet on behalf of the Blanchard government, then the ceremonies to tie the treaties tight.  Crazy pagans, the old man had sniffed, but they’d fought the Patriots bravely enough.  And unlike some – the glare had been impressive - they’re not interested in empire building, just being left alone.  “Maybe you’ll learn something.”

Things you’ve learned: how to keep her close and still ignore the pull between you.  How to look away when her breath hitches, and say something vile to help her past it. How to lose yourself for a night, a stranger to fuck in the **sand** and enough drugs to help you survive the hurt in Charlie’s eyes afterwards. 

You might need that, tomorrow night.  She’s been pushing at your boundaries harder than ever, and the urge to surrender to it, to pull her close, to let the embers burst into flame … Eve and her shiny apple have nothing on Charlie Matheson. And because the world hates you, you’re rocking up to the high mukluk’s village on the night before the summer solstice.

Be careful with this one, Blanchard had said.  Touchy, and all powerful.  “Whatever the fuck she wants, you do it.”

And if your research is right, in the covens on the plains on Midsummer’s night, the **traditions** include jumping through bonfires, toasting the dying sun with endless amounts of mead, and a probable orgy.  Honoured guests obliged to participate.  Something about filling the night with love and leaping into the dark.

Karma has _definitely_ made you her bitch.

*

 

*

Prompts: enemy, prisoner, sand, traditions


	2. Spirits bright

 

 

_Power of the sun, we honour you this night_

_We leap across the fire to keep our spirits bright_

_Power of the sun, fire in the night,_

_We leave behind, that which blinds, to restore our sight_

_*_

“You’ve chosen a very auspicious week,” the old woman says, her long white hair reflecting the orange glow of the fire.  The priestess, high druid, whatever it was Bass called her, is nude under the thin cotton wrap, the sweat of her wizened body making the sheer cotton all but transparent.

You’re in no better state, but Bass – _god, Bass_ – has even less to cover him, a mere rag draped over his loins and you can’t look at him, you can’t even look down at yourself because you know exactly what you’ll see.  Your shameless body, the silky rumble of his voice enough to leave you sticky and aching, even without the glimpses of the golden skin and sweat kissed muscles that stalk you from the corner of your eye _._  Don’t turn your head, you order yourself.  Don’t think about, don’t feel, don’t forget –

“The Aine pays us too much honour. If you are sure we are worthy --”

– you’re meant to be listening.

You force your focus onto what Bass is saying, groping for the meaning underneath.   For a man who seems to specialise in take-it-or-leave-it diplomacy, he’s being surprisingly careful, even for a softly-softly mission like this.   But you think that might even be genuine respect in his voice, which makes you wonder who the hell these people are, for Bass to tread so lightly.

“The Goddess has chosen wisely,” the old woman cackles, her faded blue eyes roving over Bass with vaguely predatory air.  “What magic you’ll make.  A fine **sacrifice** to help turn the Wheel.”

And – woah. You don’t remember reading anything about a wheel in your brief, and it certainly didn’t mention a sacrifice.  Was it the druids who liked to burn people alive?  But – not a druid, you remember; this far west it’s a homegrown blend of goddess worship and Wicca. Not that you know what that means, exactly, except … Bass wouldn’t be sitting there if they wanted to burn you alive.  Murmuring platitudes and looking at you with a big damn question written in his eyes.

What the hell had he signed you up for when you were busy hyperventilating at his nearness?  You nod and smile even as you rack your brain for some tidbit of information –they’d been talking about bonfires before, you think. And dancing, maybe? 

There’s some more mumbo jumbo about raising power and stoking the fire and filling the night with love, but Bass seems intent on robbing you of your faculties once more, leaning around you to fill up his cup, his sweaty chest a wall of damp **heat** against your back.  When he settles back, he pulls you with him, caging you in the circle of his arms and legs, one hand pulling fondly at your hair before he settles in to tracing patterns on your skin.  He’s talking with the Aine again, polite questions that you should be taking note of, but your ability to think is dribbling away with every stroke of his thumb over your collarbone.

You want to swat him, to push him away, but he’s probably just trying to send you a message, you remind yourself.  That’s what you do, why you work so well together, so in tune that you’ve built a system of covert communication around the common misconception that you are couple.  You try to tell yourself it’s more of the same, even if it’s shorting your brain out right now, really no different to the warning disguised as a helping hand in the small of your back, or the way you signal readiness with a flirtatious kiss on the cheek.  Just - focus on what he’s trying to tell you, dummy.

Relax, instinct tells you.  Stop fighting it. That’s when it works best. 

You take a deep breath and melt down into him.  The Aine practically coos at you, and you can’t keep the smile from your face, your entire body purring with satisfaction.  His touch wavers for a moment, hand clenching briefly around your neck, then resumes its caress, featherlight circles, around and around, again and again, never venturing from their square inch of super-sensitised skin.

A watching brief, you deduce.  His way of asking you to stay alert, play along, follow his lead.  To trust him.

(Things you want to tell him: he won your trust long ago, but you can’t quite say it because of where that conversation might lead.  You’ve known for months now, felt it tangle on your tongue more than once, but can’t quite bring yourself to say the words aloud. For all you call him Bass, he is still Monroe, and you are still the same girl who ordered him to kill you, loosed that bolt in Vegas, sneered at him across an empty swimming pool.  “I wouldn’t let him touch me,” you’d spat at Miles, and even then your body had known the lie of it, but the truth – the truth still makes you ache with impossibility.)

And yet, here you are, your onetime enemy wrapped around you, hot skin and hard muscle almost insubstantial next to your faith in just how hard he’ll fight for you.  At first, the problem was believing why.  Taking the reassurance he offered you every day, and accepting that it was actually about you, Charlie. Not just his best friend’s niece, or the kid he’d promised to protect, or the girl his son had taken a shine to.

Nothing had ever been about you before, so it took you a while to catch on.

The first time he came back, you could see the shock in his eyes.  The second time, the conflict, his gaze darting from Miles to you and back to Miles.  The third time … the night he’d nearly become General Monroe all over again, the night he’d declared the end of a treaty, he’d come looking for you, a bottle of whiskey in his hand.

You’d called him on it, told him you weren’t Miles, but when he shrugged and said you were better company, chosen to believe him.  And if you’d thought ‘maybe tonight’ more than you should have, you must have hidden it well, because he didn’t touch you even when those heavy, hot stares took the place of words as the level on the bottle dropped.

“Blanchard’s offered me a commission up in Austin,” he’d said eventually, inspecting the bottom of his glass.  “Say the word and there’ll be one there for you.”

“What word?” you’d asked, because whiskey, but maybe you were feeling brave too.  “Does it start with ‘f’ and end in ‘me’ ?”

The continent’s most notorious warlord had actually looked shocked at the suggestion he might  offer favours for sex.  He’d stiffened to ramrod straight, then slammed his glass down.

“And we’re done here,” he’d snapped, pushing himself up to his feet.  “I’m leaving for Austin in the morning.  Goodbye, Charlie.”

You’d been ready before dawn, waiting outside his house for him to emerge.  You might even have grunted “sorry.”  And maybe you remember his lightning-bolt smile, the way it squeezed your heart and made you flush with pleasure.

He needed someone at his back, you told yourself, and that’s all it was.  And for all his sins, Monroe was straight with you, and never made you feel like an afterthought.  No need to look at it closer than that.  He’d made it pretty damn clear he didn’t want to touch you.

And that was good, right?

Except … four months after Willoughby, six weeks of trekking to and fro across the Plains, and the old ache had become an itch, and then a burn.  Somewhere about the time he’d stopped using that vicious **snarl** every time you got too close, you’d stopped telling yourself it was just too much proximity and not enough chances to dump the adrenaline that dogs your existence. 

You couldn’t sleep at night for wanting him, and the foot between your bedrolls had dwindled to a handspan, then an inch, then nothing.  And when you wake to those soft shudders in the dead of night that tell you he’s locked in the same struggle, you reach into your own jeans and breathe together as you chase your release.

If it was just physical, it could be an easy thing. But this is something else you share.  The knowledge of exactly why you don’t – can’t – do something about it.  Because it’s not just danger signals that pass between you.  It’s “wait,” and “steady” and “I’ve got your back.”  It’s “careful,” and “relax” and “I’ve got a plan.” 

Most dangerous of all: “I’m here,” and “you came back.”

There’s only one thing that stands unsaid between you, and it’s not because either of you doubt the other feels it.  Sometimes it rises so strong your heart feels like it might burst if you don’t confess, but then he says something callous or you catch sight of the brand on your arm and the past traps you tight once more.

But as you stare into the fire, and let the sweet smoke fill your lungs, it’s easy to smile, and lean back against his chest.  Pull his hand around your waist, and let him stroke, up and down, up and down, until all you can think about is his fingers, so, so close to where you want them most.

Too easy to moan his name, and push his hand down a little, and buck into the feeling of it, the heat of his skin burning through the thin cotton, the slightest twitch of his fingers sending shockwaves through you.   He’s breathing hard in your ear, but still trying to carry on a conversation with your host.  She catches your eye and her grin is so cheeky you can’t help but giggle.  He curses, and bends his head to take your lips.

“Jesus, Charlotte,” he shudders into your mouth, and you trace the words with your tongue, tasting their every contour, rolling in them, rejoicing in desperate want he’s not even trying to hide.

“Need you,” you sob, and you wonder if there’s something in the smoke that’s cut you both free of your inhibitions, and you should ask, you really should, but it’s true, and it’s been true for so long you can’t begin to stop, lifting yourself up to slide fully into his lap.

The old woman – Aine, blessed Aine, blessings on us Aine - beams as your limbs entwine, claps as you succumb to another hungry kiss.

“So hungry for each other,” she croons, and “the power you’ll raise.”

You watch her as Bass slides his mouth over the skin underneath your ear, working his way towards your mouth.  She reaches behind her to find something round – a drum, you realise, as the beat fills the room, and she begins to chant.

This time, you aren’t listening, lips on your skin demanding your full attention, your hands tangling in his curls and your hips bucking and begging with each new erotic flashpoint.  His cock is a spear thrusting between the cleft of your buttocks and when you clench, the kisses become bites, his rough exhalations bringing you fierce joy.

Yet somehow, the words register.  Not all of them, not the tune or the cadence, but the revelation that leaves you covered in goosebumps, heart clenched, jaw dropped with awe.

_Clear away the old…leave behind … the flame of love …_

_The sun, that will always return …_

Leap, she chants.  Leap across the fire, keep our spirits bright, power of the sun, fire in the night.

You tug his hand from your breast, soothing his frustrated cry by catching his hands in yours, weaving them together, your **interlaced fingers** less a message and more the need to hold him tight in this moment.  Conveniently enough, it’s also a signal you’ve used before, and it drags him back a little, focuses his attention.

“What song is that?” you ask quietly, and the Aine beams at you as if you’ve unlocked the secrets of the universe.

(Perhaps you have.)

“It’s the Song for Litha, child.   A sacred song, that reminds us why we celebrate, shows us how to cleanse our souls with fire and move forward, setting us free.”

“This sacrifice – that’s what it is?”

“Exactly, my love.  Our God and Goddess, cutting themselves free of their past, and committing to the future.  Welcoming the dark times, knowing their love will bring back the light.”

Bass makes a choked noise behind you, his entire chest rising with the pained intake of breath.  You might have taken it as a rejection, once.  But there are too many variables in play here, too much coincidence for anything to be a coincidence at all.  Your parents had always scoffed at any sort of belief, but right now, you have faith. You are in the grip of the divine.

And you’re pretty sure the Universe wants you and Bass to fuck.

“How, exactly?”

Her smile is indulgent.  “You’ll lead us in the **dance**.  Leap through the fire. Emerge cleansed, and consecrate your union under the stars, one more fire to light up the night.”

Just as you’d thought.

In public.

You take a shuddery breath at the thought, and Bass drops his mouth next to your ear to whisper reassurance.  “We don’t have to do this.  It’s an honour, something their people vie for.  If we say no, there are plenty of couples out there who would jump at the chance.  They’d find something else for us to do.”

Nothing as perfect as this.  Nothing you both need, have needed for so long. 

“Do you want to?”

He hesitates for a moment too long.  His reluctance scalds like hot water, even as your newly-wise inner voice sighs at you.  But the old patterns – advance and retreat, disguise and obfuscate – they’re too well worn to avoid.

“You don’t want to!”

“Charlie …”

“God, Bass, for one fucking moment in your life, just – put it out there, you know?  Be honest!”

He growls so deep your entire body thrums with it.

“Of course I want to!  And I’m pretty sure you know that.  Have known that,” he stresses, finally answering the question that has taunted you for months.

Later, you promise yourself.  You’ll drag every last detail from his hide later, but right now …

“We need to do this.  Not just for them,” you say firmly.  “For us.”

“But …”

“What?”

“Not like that.  Not the first time.”

Oh.

That’s …

Oh God.

He’s right.

Because you know now, without any trace of doubt, that everything’s he’s done lately, everything he’s chosen – it’s been about you.  And as much as your souls are crying out to be cleansed, as glorious as it will be – first you need something that's about the two of you.  For you.  (Just you.)

And you'll burn even brighter tomorrow, if you can just light this fire tonight.

*

Prompts: sacrifice, heat, snarl, interlaced fingers, dance,


	3. Always return

 

**_“I am the fire that clears away the old,_ **

**_I am the holy light that guides you to your soul,_ **

**_I am the Flame of Love for which you yearn,_ **

**_I am the sun that will always return.”_ **

_From “Litha (summer solstice song) by Lisa Thiel_

 

You curl together, wandering hands and sipping kisses, glowing embers waiting patiently to flare into life.  The chant rises and falls around you, and you draw it deep, voices echoing the refrain, newly hopeful hearts falling in with the beat of the drum.

When the rhythm falters, then starts to fall away, your touches grow bolder.   You manage to maintain conversation for a few desultory minutes, trying not to smile as the old woman’s eyelids droop.  “Good night,” you chorus when she offers you her blessing, then turns way from the fire to give you her back.  Still you swallow each other’s tortured gasps and moans, quietly, quietly, until the first snore rattles from chest. 

One … two … three heartbeats, and Charlie pushes up to stand tall in the yellow glow of the fire.  Hours and days and months of anticipation vibrate between you as she reaches for the hem of the shift, and with a wide, joyous smile, lifts it clear of her body to reveal her sweat-gilded curves.  You’re no strangers to each other’s bodies, too many rooms shared and wounds stitched and clothes thrown on in the dark of night, but this slow, proud, unveiling, this unmistakeable invitation … it’s the start of _you_.

Except it’s not, of course.  Neither of you could pinpoint that if you tried, so many encounters fraught with the electricity you worked so hard to ignore, that sizzling connection you refused to acknowledge. You’d shoved it down, gone on the attack, tortured each other with the impossibility for so long that it should be hard, this leap.  It should be impossible.

But Charlie smiles, and Bass holds out his hands, and you fold together again.   _You_.  A **tempest** rising, a symphony of perfectly tuned emotion,  a crescendo of at last, at last, at last as you entwine, two bodies, two souls, united, together, _you_.

*

“Charlie,” he groans, his gaze leaving goosebumps in its wake, a tangible caress that makes your nipples ache and your centre throb as he drinks you in. You feel wanton before him, a moan escaping your throat even before you collide, his hands finding yours, your knees already spreading for him.  You leap, and he catches you, gripping your ass as you cling tight to his neck, the head of his cock already nudging at your dripping, swollen sex.

“Charlotte,” and the strain in his voice slays you, and you know he wants to make love to you slowly … but your patience is worn thin after the hours you’ve spent burning for each other today. 

“Fourteen months, Bass!” you grit out, and the surprise in his eyes tells you yes, he’ll call you on that later, but right now, there’s nothing that can stop this, nothing that can keep you apart for even a second longer.  He bucks his hips, bounces you high, and you come down hard on his cock, a thick, hot, heavenly intrusion that makes you bite down hard on his shoulder as your body strains to take him.

He grunts in your ear and grips your ass tighter, folding his knees to take you both to the ground, already two, three thrusts into fucking you before you hit the ground.  You lock your ankles behind his back and squirm closer, your chest pushed into his, your hipbones pushing into his belly.  His cock pulses and swells inside your quivering, overexcited cunt, a part of you now.  Claimed.  “Mine,” you demand, clenching around him, making him jerk inside you.

“Yes, yours,” he pants into your hair, hands roaming up and down your back in his bid to claim every inch of your skin.  “Charlotte.  Charlie.  So good, baby.  Mine.”

“Yours,” you confirm, then lean back, still locked at the hips, to watch his cock emerge from your body, glistening with your juices.  You bite your lip at the sight, and he huffs a laugh, and thrusts shallowly just to see you react.

You flick your eyes up to his, one brow raised, then reach down to tweak at your swollen clit.  Roll it around with your thumb, then catch it between your fingers, a bolt of pleasure zinging up your backbone in response.

“Fuck,” he moans.  “Make yourself come, baby.  Need to see you come.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he nods, urging you on with another slow, shallow thrust designed to frustrate. “Wanna feel it.”

You contemplate begging him to tip you backwards and fuck you properly, but it’s too tempting, the power he’s handed you.  And you want to come.  Desperately.  You abandon the teasing, showboat touches and slide the pads of your fingers over your clit, wide circles that narrow as your control slips.  He waits, eyes flitting between your face and your fingers, until you start to shake, then rams into you as the convulsions start.

You wail in gratitude, welcoming him deeper, begging him to never stop.  To break you apart.  To always, always, be this, yours, you.                                                                                                                                                                     

He snuffles in your ear, tears wet on the side of your face, and you stay locked together, tangled in each other, refusing to part until your eyelids start to droop.  “Fuck – I …”

Maybe you were already dreaming, as exhaustion claimed you.  You remember him slipping out of your body, and lifting you on to the pallet nearby.  Pulling the pile of furs the Aine had provided over you both. Wrapping you tight in his arms and whispering something beautiful into your ear, a promise or a prayer or something even more precious.

Maybe it was a pure fantasy, or just the predictable **aftermath** of your sexual and emotional storm. Or maybe he did say the words you never thought he would, that thing you’d always denied could ever exist between you.  All you know is that your body was floating somewhere, and for once you were without fear, without rage, without guilt.  Lips brushing your ear – _sleep well, love_ \- and _I love you_ hanging in the air.  

It might even have been you that said it. 

All you remember the smile pulling at your lips as you slip into **sleep** , his body a blanket around you, the last impossibility exploded, possible, tucked tight against your heart.

*

She says the last thing you’d ever expect to hear, and it fells you like a sword to the gut. You’ve seen her fight the need to thank you for saving her life, and hide her grin when you make a joke, seen lust and awe and even something approaching hero worship flare in her eyes, only to be ruthlessly tamped down … you’ve never once imagined she would let herself slip like that.

It’s one thing to admit to yourself that you cared for the girl – had, in fact, hung your miserable existence on your ability to keep her safe and occasionally make her smile - but to hear her confess to actual feelings on her end is something else.   You hadn’t ever expected to hear those words again, from anyone.  You’d given up on it – given up on a lot of things, before you’d collided with Charlie Matheson.

You try to tell yourself she doesn’t know what she’s saying, she’s just sex drunk, but you know your logic is **flawed**.  It’s Charlie.  Seeing through bullshit is her superpower, all that Matheson insight turned up to ten, with none of the fondness for self-delusion.   And you saw that smile, her satisfaction.  Felt it warm you as she snuggled up to your side and fell asleep.  Happier than you’ve ever seen her – somehow, you did that.

And it’s wrong, this ridiculous flare of hope that leaves you restless, unable to sleep even as she snores lightly next to you.   There’s nothing you want more than to curl around her and let yourself slide into happy oblivion, but you’re haunted, tormented, by visions of waking her up to show her how you feel, by the ghostly laughter of mob of tiny children with dark blond hair and bright blue eyes, of your friend, that person you have loved longest, handing her to you as you stand in front of a priest, his dark coffee eyes full of joy.

It’s the last one that’s rips your heart out, because you know it will never happen, and without it, the other two just feel wrong.  You’ve traumatised this girl.  Monstered her.  You’ve no right to lay next to her dreaming of happy endings.

No right, the voice snarls, that vicious edge he gets right before he slides his knife across someone’s jugular, or rips away the last family you’ve got.

Huh.  Him.  Not yourself, you realise slowly.  It’s never your own voice that berates you for you sins or mocks you for your weakness.  It’s Miles.  Even now, you can’t escape him.  How fucked up are you when your own personal demon is the man you still think of as your best friend?  The one who took one look at you and expected the worst?

(I know you, you son of a bitch, he’d said.  What did you do to her?)

I made her happy, brother.  I made her fall in love with me.

Your lips twitch and you have to acknowledge the truth.  Charlie fucking Matheson.  Can’t make her do a goddamn thing she doesn’t want to.  She fell in love with you because … fucked if you know why.  But your sorry ass probably had precious little to do with it.

Won’t get you any less dead, though. 

Should you be making a game plan for when this inevitably gets back to him?  Any sense, and you’d be telling Charlie this won’t happen again, not beyond tomorrow night, but … you’d be lying.  You know it, and so would she.  Because something has happened, something irreversible, and the whole world has shifted.

It’s you and Charlie, now.  Miles is the past, and while that still aches like an old bruise, you know he’s better left there.  Maybe the voice in your head is all you’ll have left, if this goes sideways.   Maybe one day you can be friends again, but you’re done waiting for him to figure that out.  It’s his turn to run after you.

Let’s just hope he isn’t waving his sword about when he does it.  Because if it does go that way, you’re ready. 

She murmurs into your chest and you pull her closer, memorising the feel of her and inhaling one last lungful of sweet, sex-scented air before you surrender to the contentment dragging you under.  Burn it all away.  Let it all go.

Time for something new. 

(You.)

*

You wake once more, the third time that night.  Or is it the fourth? You try to count – fast, that first time, then so slow you screamed, then, yes, the third time … oh god, the third time.  You’re still awash with him, his taste in your mouth and an ache sharp enough to make you bite your lip, a throbbing reminding of just how thoroughly he’d claimed you. 

A God indeed, you smirk as you stretch out your spine, and run wondering fingers across the marks on your body.  He’d taught you things you never realised you needed to learn – how good it could be, going slow.  How every patch of skin on your body had the potential to be an erogenous zone.  How little you cared about an audience, even if your host woke at one point, her quiet benediction floating in the air as the world shattered for the third – or was it fourth? – time that night.

“Good morning!”

The chirpy greeting should be your signal to untangle yourself from acres warm skin, but all you can manage is a sleepy smile that turns into a blush as Aine winks at you.

“There’s a hot pool just out the back in you want to soak away the night a little.  After you’ve washed, if you still want to lead us in the dance tonight – there’ll be gifts.”

“But – I don’t – we don’t need – ”

“Would you deprive us the right to adorn our God and Goddess in homage to their power and beauty?"

She’s smiling as she says it, but you feel humbled as you murmur thank you, and sit up slowly to start your day.  You definitely need to wash, the scent of your lust thick all over your skin, and in your hair. 

Your body floods with the memory of riding him, tiny little circles of your hips as your hair fell in his face, Bass wrapping his fists in it helplessly as your body convulsed around his.  Then he’d flipped you over, and brought his spurting cock up between your breasts, that rough silk voice telling you how filthy you were, how fucking wanton, how much he wanted to lick the thick, white stripes from your skin.  You’d panted through the first then protested at the last, opening your mouth wide.

“Share,” you’d commanded, and he’d rushed to obey, grinning down at you as he guided one hot stream between your lips.  Then he’d kissed you, long and thorough, the taste of your own pleasure combining with his in a memorable cocktail of flavours.

It had been a prayer, in its way, that litany of mine, mine, mine, and a perhaps a sacrifice too, chipping away at all your hurts.  He’s still Monroe, the once-was General.  The man who killed you father.  You haven’t forgotten.

And that question you’ve been circling for months now, the one you’d never wanted to admit even as you were forced to acknowledge this thing that has always electrified the spaces between you, right from that very first day.  Who did you fall in love with? When? Are you loving the man he is now, or fucking the enemy who made you seethe with lust and fury?  

Can he be one without the other, and do you even want him to be?

(Maybe it’s the combination of both that fires your blood so much.)

You tiptoe from the tent with your head full of questions, but by the time he walks out to join you, they have floated away in the warm waters of the spring.  Two women, maybe a little younger than you, maybe a little older, dropped their clothes by the edge before joining you in the pool, one insisting on washing your hair, the other buffing your skin bright with handfuls of fine sand.

“I’ve seen your God, you’re so lucky,” one of them croons, massaging your scalp.  You want to say yes, yes you are, but it feels so good it comes out as a satisfied grunt instead.

The other woman moves behind you to work on your back, talented hands working their way down and then up your spine in a circular motion that feels so good you want to purr.  “He’s the lucky one,” she breathes into your ear, and no, you weren’t imagining the press of hard nipples against your back, because clever fingers are skimming across your belly, sliding south to part your nether lips, and nudging gently at your well-used clit.  You’ve never been touched by a woman before, but their gentle smiles, their excited chatter – you close your eyes and let the pleasure wash over you, your orgasm cresting just as Bass slips into the water next to you. 

“Well, there’s a sight to wake up to,” he growls.  “You really are a goddess, Charlotte.  Not sure I’ll be able last until tonight.”

The women giggle, and assure him he doesn’t have to, and it’s easy, after that, to watch them tend to him, to slide close and tangle your tongues together as a dark head bobs in his lap, to catch his groan of satisfaction in your mouth, to thank your new friends for his pleasure, and your own.  To part with a kiss, and follow the women to a tent where they weave **wildflowers** into your hair, and decorate your body with an array of symbols that call down blessings from a variety of deities. 

When they’re done, you stand nude and glorious in the deepening twilight, then raise your arms overhead to accept the final gift, a pearl-encrusted **dress** that hangs heavy from slender ties that your attendants secure with jaunty little bows.  It’s luminous even in the mirk of the tent, warm and stiff under your fingers, rasping against every inch of your over-sensitised skin in a way that sets your body to a constant hum.

Tonight, the Aine explains, you are the moon, and he is the sun, and your union will shake the sky and scatter blessings on the earth.

As the noise of **crickets** swells to mark the coming night, the Aine lights a squat, sweet-smelling **candle** , muttered blessings giving way to proud invocation as the wick sputters then glows into life.  “Tonight, you carry the fire within us all.  Let it catch, and burn high, and light our way,” she intones, holding the slender column aloft, then settling it into your clasped hands.

The tiny flame flickers in a languorous huff of breeze as you step out of the Aine’s tent, but all you can do to protect it is angle your body slightly.  It glows softly, then seems to take a measure of the night, strengthening, a living presence in your hands.  Strong enough, you smile, and start down a path that seems to shimmer in the **moonlight,** a silver ribbon leading you to your golden God.

You can’t see him, just the flames of a bonfire leaping on the outskirts of the camp, but every cell in your body can feel him waiting, burning, blazing with it, and the little flame cradled in your hands seems to strengthen with every step.

Head after head turns to watch your progress, hand after hand reaches out to touch you, and you’re not a believer, never have been, but you smile and they gasp, you swing your hips and they shout their excitement, you think of your lover and you all groan with anticipation.  You are they and they are you and in this moment … you are all divine.

And then you see him, swathed in a long golden cloak, the sharp lines of his face hawkish in the leaping firelight, his eyes incandescent blue as he turns to watch your approach.  You move to his side, then pass the candle into his hands even as you lean up to claim a kiss.  His lips chase yours, linger, give thanks until he drags them away, voice rough as he chants something about the sun and the moon and the night.   But you don’t hear, don’t care because your body is the flame itself, and you are ready, aching, dying to throw yourself into the flames, to burn everything away, to leap.

“Ready?” he asks, and when you moan in the affirmative, reaches for the ties on your dress, the simple bows that will let it release, the weight of a thousand pearls dragging it straight to your feet.

You unclasp his cloak, filling the night with your delighted laugh when you find he’s wearing nothing underneath, both of you naked to the night. 

There’s music somewhere, and people dancing, but it barely registers, next to throb in your belly and the urgency of his proud cock.  Satisfaction lies waiting on the other side of the fire, so you catch his eyes, kiss his knuckles, then face the flames together …

*

… bunch your muscles for height and distance, and leap.

The heat is living thing, stealing your breath, wrapping itself around you, beating in your blood, but your feet thump into the dirt on the other side of the bonfire, and it is done.  You feel lighter, joy swelling in your chest like a balloon, so much feeling you might just burst.

“I love you,” you tell the naked girl spinning in circles next to you.  “For a while now.”

“I know,” she sings into the night, then leads you forward.  This time the path is short, a grove of trees just a handful of yards away, and at its centre, a giant chair woven from branches.  Further out in the night, there are people weaving through the trees, songs and chatter and music coming with them, but for the moment, you are alone.

“Huh.  I was expecting a bed,” Charlie says, lithe body already finding footholds to clamber upwards towards the seat.  “Wonder what we’re meant to do?”

Your brain crowds with every filthy fantasy you’ve ever had about this girl, and you want to try them all.  But she’s the Goddess and you merely a sacrifice and you know whose throne this is.

“Sit back, Charlie.  Right back, hands on the arms.  The Goddess on her throne.”

It’s not a command, you hope she realises that, even if need has left your voice so rough it probably sounded like one.  She does as you ask, wriggling backwards until she’s enclosed by the woven branches, straight back and mischievous smile, humouring you.  You approach the throne, pull yourself up towards the platform, press a kiss to her dusty, bare feet dangling over the edge of the giant seat.  Then slide your hands up to her knees, to push them apart.

“Spread for me, love.”

She moans in realisation, back arching at the mere thought of it, golden thighs parting to reveal the glistening pink gates to heaven.  You breathe, nearly overcome by the urge to pounce, telling yourself this has to be done right.  Her pleasure needs to break the universe, and this girl, this dragon-hearted, fire-breathing, golden-souled girl, she can do it.

 _We_ can do it, the God roars within you. 

You hold her gaze as you push one knee higher, knee to your shoulder and foot pressing into your back.  You can feel the flex and point of her toes, the drag of her heel on your back when you trace patterns on her inner thighs with your fingertips, then the bite of her toes when you blow, a hot stream of air to anoint her blood-flushed lips, that gloriously swollen clit.  A rush of moisture result, every part of her sex suddenly swimming in her juices, and it takes every last ounce of your control not to bury your face deep.  Instead, you flick your tongue over her straining bud, then use just the tip to part her folds, to trace them, to tease around the opening below until her thighs are clamping around your ears, shuddering.

You make yourself stop before she comes, then start anew, her tortured gasps finding a muted accompaniment in the shadows beyond your altar.  You plunge your tongue deep, thrusting in and out in a rhythm that makes her buck against your mouth and forces you to grab her, hold her still as her hips jerk and shudder, round glory of her ass filling your hands.  You lick your triumph into her arousal-drenched folds and smile around the plump berry of her clit, tugging, playing, driving her high.  You know exactly how you want to send her over, this first time.  

Once circle, two, around the sensitive ring of flesh and she’s wriggling, chasing the pressure of the pinky finger you’re using to tantalise her asshole.  She’s probably never done this before, what with her roster of Blackout babies and quick, casual fucks, but you’re neither of those things and it’s time she knew it.  She’s your Goddess, and you’re going to make her cum like she’s chasing death itself.

And soon, if the way she’s bearing down is any indication, pulsing around the tip of your finger and shuddering from the sensation.  You withdraw it a little, ignoring her cry of loss as you  ready yourself for the final gallop, lifting her up again to curl your tongue around the flaring hole, making her keen so viciously you laugh as you move forward to nibble your way up to her clit.  She curses you, filling the air with desperate pleas as you lash the plump bud with your tongue, teasing both hungry openings with your fingers as you let the wave build.   When the shake of her thighs and the flutter across her belly signals the approaching cataclysm, you back off a little, let her take a deep breath, then slide three fingers deep into the hungry heart of her sex, stroking, stroking.  She screeches, clamps down hard, and that’s what you’re waiting for, that’s the moment when you spiral your index finger into her ass, her astonished shout telling you that yes, you’ve found her g-spot.  From both sides.

There are tears running down her face by the time she finishes coming, her entire body shivering with aftershocks as you rearrange yourselves in the giant chair, Charlie a ribbon of exhausted muscles as she lies across your lap.  Your cock is so hard it hurts, but she’s nearly insensate in her overload, eyes closed and muscles still jumping with every touch.

You wait, reverent, running your fingers through her hair to soothe her, and pulling her upright in your lap only because you want to feel her heart slam next to yours.  When she stirs, it’s probably just a coincidence that it drags her slippery pussy back and forth across your poor, rigid cock.  Pure luck that the mindless leap of your cock nudges her open and burrows deep. Probably just instinct, you tell yourself as she slides down fully and starts to move. 

Pure intent, you realise as her eyes slide open, burning blue as they fix on yours. 

*

You tilt your hips and take him deep, the slide of him the most magical thing you’ve ever felt.  It hasn’t even been fifteen minutes since the orgasm of your life, yet here you are, riding him.  Letting him split you open, take all you have, and scatter your body to the four winds all over again.

Except … it was the God that was supposed to die.  And you were the instrument of his demise, the precipice from which he needed to jump.  To turn the wheel.  Bring back the sun. Save the world.

Nothing out of the ordinary for a Matheson, you suppose.

You’re not sure why it always has to Bass, has to be this stubborn bleeding heart of a man who is the sacrifice, the whipping boy, who takes the hits without ever flinching.  He takes it as his lot now, and that, more than anything, is why you had to leave Willoughby.  You didn’t want to, but you’ve always seen that in him, seen how he loves and needs and suffers and fights for everyone but himself.  Seen it, and loved it.  Adored it.

Your breath catches in your throat as your hips stutter out of rhythm, already starting to chase more please.  Just feel him, you order them.  Surround him – worship him.

You tilt your face up to find his mouth, and drown in slow, wet kisses for a millennia.  There’s an excited hum out in the dark, and you know they’re watching you, waiting for his peak.  It’s yours, this love, but tonight, it also belongs to them.

“Wanna turn around,” you murmur into his throat, pushing away from the wall of warmth that is his chest.  His cock is buried so deeply inside you that you merely have to lean back and swivel on his axis, the shifting angle sending a riot of sensation up your spine, forcing you to clutch and knead at his thighs as you reseat yourself back against his chest.  His hands come round to weigh your breasts, fingers plucking at your nipples in an exquisite tease that forces you to grind down onto his cock.  His control starts to slip almost immediately, hands suddenly clumsy and rough, slipping down to your hips to guide your rhythm a little, clenching at your hipbones so hard you know he wants to take over altogether. 

“Yes – do it Bass, please,” and order or plea, it doesn’t matter, because you need, need, need, so much that it’s turning you inside out and you’re his to take and you want everyone to see, to scream it into the night, to see it bounce off the stars.  You pull your knees up and fling your legs over his, wide, wider, until your knees are hooked wide either side of his, your frenzied union on display for all the world to see, control completely ceded to the God desperately clinging to the last shreds of his restraint.

“I need ---” and that’s all it takes to make him grip you tight, and slam you down onto his cock, over and over, with all the abandon of this wild, wanton night.  He swells within you and shouts a warning, but you can’t bear to part with him, beg to be filled, “please Bass, just–” and “I need” and “mine.” 

When he lets go of your hips, it’s to wrap his arms around you and squeeze, hot tears dropping against your neck as he shakes in the wake of the emotional storm.  You squirm back around to curl up in his arms, shielding him from the watchers in the dark.  They’ve had their show, the appropriately cataclysmic union of Goddess and God, but it’s done now.  This aftermath, the raw emotions shuddering in their wake – these are yours and yours alone.   Human things, the real intimacies of the night.

The God is dead, his past burned away.  The wheel is turned, and the future born.

Now Bass and Charlie - you, we, us - can begin.

*

Prompts: moonlight, crickets, candle, dress, wildflowers, flawed, sleep, aftermath, tempest, music

_fin_


End file.
